Wireless communication systems are known to include a plurality of subscriber units and supporting wireless infrastructure. The supporting wireless infrastructure includes system controllers, site controllers, base station controllers, base stations, and a plurality of wireless communication channels. At each site of the wireless communication system, a site controller manages a plurality of base station controllers and each of the base station controllers manages a plurality of base stations. Each of the base stations supports a set of the wireless communication channels. The set of wireless communication channels support control information (e.g. inbound signaling words and outbound signaling words), voice communications, and data communications. Typically, one of the set of wireless communication channels is designated as a control channel that supports the control information, while the other channels support the voice and/or data communications. The subscriber units of the wireless communication system include land mobile radios, portable radios, cellular telephones, pagers, personal digital assistants having RF (radio frequency) transceiver(s), personal computers having a wireless modem, wireless facsimile, or any other devices that communicate data via a wireless communication path. Each of the subscriber units is capable of initiating a wireless communication service and receiving wireless communication services. For example, a subscriber unit may be a targeted recipient of a facsimile, a cellular telephone call, a page, a data transmission, or a combination of such communications. When a subscriber unit receives the notification of an incoming call, the operator of the subscriber unit has no idea as to the content of the message, and, in most cases, has no indication of the identity of the originating party. Note that some digital wireless subscriber units are equipped with caller I.D., which provides the operator of the receiving subscriber unit an indication of the originating party, but still does not provide an indication as to the content of the communication.
Depending on the frequency of incoming calls, it can be quite enjoyable to receive a call if called infrequently, or it can be down right annoying if called too frequently. For an operator of a subscriber unit that is called too frequently, the operator has the choice of simply not answering his or her phone. But this all-or-nothing approach may cause the operator to miss important calls. Caller I.D. provides the telephone number of the originating party, but this information is only helpful if the operator knows the originating party well enough to know his or her number. In many business communications, operators of the subscriber units only occasionally know the telephone number of the originating business party. For example, assume that the operator of a subscriber unit is a doctor who works at a large hospital. In a normal day, the doctor receives dozens of communications per hour either via his or her pager, cellular telephone or other wireless device. While some of the incoming calls may be important requiring the doctor's immediate attention, there are many less urgent communications that can wait. However, is until the doctor answers the call, he or she does not know whether the call was urgent, whether it could have waited, or whether someone else (nurse, office personnel, etc.) could have handled it.
Another solution for reducing the number of incoming calls is to forward the calls to another telephone. In call forwarding, all calls targeting the subscriber unit will be forwarded to the other telephone. While this reduces the number of incoming calls, it is an all-or-nothing approach, thus delaying the receipt of important calls. Yet another method for controlling incoming calls is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,457,732 entitled "Method and Apparatus for Delivery of a Response in a Messaging System" issued to Steven J. Goldberg and assigned to Motorola, Inc. The '732 patent teaches a method and apparatus for efficiently delivering responses to designated messaging terminals. The delivery of a data or a voice response is delivered in the manner preferred by the user of the messaging terminal which receives the response, and without delivering intrusive data signals to the user's handset during the delivery of the response call. While this technique allows the user to establish some priority as to which calls it will receive, it does not take into account priorities placed upon incoming messages by the originator of the messages.
Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus that allows for processing of messages based on originator priority and recipient priority .